


two black eyes from loving too hard

by VolunteerFieryDantooinian



Category: Arrow (TV 2012), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Anger, Cisco just meets Rory at a party, Cisco punches transphobes, High school Cisco, M/M, Post-Canon, Pre-Canon, Punching, Trans Cisco Ramon, Trans Male Character, Transphobia, VERY drunk Cisco, Wally West is implied to be trans, be warned, did you just assume my gender jokes, drunk Cisco, not really a crossover, trans guy, will get you punched
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-30
Updated: 2016-12-30
Packaged: 2018-09-12 10:45:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9068266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VolunteerFieryDantooinian/pseuds/VolunteerFieryDantooinian
Summary: 3 times Cisco Ramon punched someone.title from LA Devotee by Panic! At The Disco.





	

 

**1.**

Cisco Ramon was barely 15 and the youngest in his class, which wasn't surprising, considering he was taking junior classes now, and would likely be able to graduate next spring. He'd already been established as the weird, outcasted nerd, and being trans really, really didn't help anything.

( _He,_ he thinks, and he loves the way it feels running over his tongue, surrounding him with waves of something a little like confidence.)

Cisco hated the looks he got in the hallways, the icy stares, or even worse the glances of  _pity._ Sometimes he thought he'd have been better off as the nerd prep girl from middle school. Never out, always crying, but not treated like shit. 

"That's sad," the girl who was his best friend in 6th grade chuckled, voice full of acid. ( _Memories of summer, of long wet hair and sticky pink bubblegum, and then of 2 winters ago. Crying, shorter hair, voices raised higher and higher until Cisco physically couldn't speak anymore. His mom had had to come pick him up; he'd cried the whole way home.)_

"If you're gonna pretend to be a boy,  _Izzie,_ you should at least try. Maybe cut your hair or something." She laughs, and Cisco gave her a pointed glare before getting back to his Physics 2 essay. 

"You know I'm not pretending, and so does the rest of the world, asshole." He mutters, and she snorts.

"You're wearing  _nail polish,_ and your hair is almost at your shoulders. You've never fooled anyone,  _Ramon_. You're just a fake little t-"

Cisco whirled around and punched her in the face before he realized he was doing it, her head snapping back with the force of it. There wasn't any blood, and he didn't break anything. He knew she couldn't do anything about it, and that she'd egged him on. "What the fuck, you freak?!" She exclaimed, and skulked off to find her equally sulky, assholish friends. 

He shakily finished up his third page and slid his laptop back into his bag, briskly walking through the hallway that lead to the courtyard, and shoved open the door.

It was quiet and empty, thank the force, albeit freezing in the march air. Not too big, either. He shakily ran over to one of the corners and dropped to his knees, shivering.

There was a horrible tightness in his chest, a feeling that he wasn't real. He wasn't real. 

Cisco thought, and the tears started to roll down his cheeks, letting out whimpering, gasping sobs that echoed in the emptiness of the courtyard. 

He didn't hear the footsteps until they were right up on him, and he didn't look up.

"What's wrong, little brother?" Dante's voice was surprisingly gentle, and there was a slightly angry edge to it, saying _who do I have to murder?_ "Deep breaths. Come on, little bro. What happened?"

"I-It-It was-s Kaylee, s-she-" His voice was shaking, and he couldn't even finish his sentences right. Dante glared at the ground, frowning at absolutely nothing.

"Do you want me to- Oh jeez, Cisc, I'm sorry, I.." Dante couldn't even finish his sentence before Cisco had latched onto him, sobbing huge, hiccuping sobs into his older brother's jacket. "Don't worry, buddy, she's gonna be magically, somehow found by the Administrator fucking Todd Myers behind the lockers this afternoon."

"T-thanks, Dante."

 

 **2.**  

It was the end of his first sophomore semester of college, and a friend of his was throwing a party. He didn't really  _have_ to go, but he really felt like getting shitfaced after finals had given him 2 breakdowns, one illness, and a trip to the urgent care after a particularly bad anxiety attack.

Cisco downed what was probably his 5th drink of the night, some sugary-saccharine, convoluted beverage that was going to his head very, very quickly. It was actually really disgusting, if he was gonna be honest, but he drank anyways.

The music was pulsing through his whole body, couples grinding on each other in the corners and people dancing with their friends like nobody else was there. The feeling was pleasant, being part of something bigger, the beat of some loud, catchy top-40 hit barely understandable through the thick haze of the drinks he'd had.

 Eventually he realized someone was yelling, and being drunk, and being Cisco, he decided to go check it out. He raised his drink high and carefully made his way through the twisting, labyrinthine crowd, and sighed when he finally reached the edge. 

"I swear to fucking GOD, get off of me!" 

"Aw, jeez, I was just trying to be friendly! Besides, you've never been with a guy like me before, so I figured maybe you'd wanna ditch that little girlfriend of yours and have some real fun."

"Go to hell!"

Cisco recognized the girl; she was tall and skinny, with a lot of piercings and even more attitude. She and her girlfriend were in his Gender Studies class, and she had sent him her notes a few times when he'd been too sick to come to class. The dude, however, had a reputation around campus for being a huge asshole, and had the habit of replacing Cisco's name with some new, usually made up slur.

God, he hated that asshole.

Cisco wasn't about to fucking walk away from this, no sir, he wasn't, but he wasn't exactly sure what to do.

So he debated for a minute and walked up to the arguing pair, taking the girl (Hazel, he was pretty sure) by the arm gently.

"Hey, hey, she's made it pretty clear that she's not interested, alright? Fuck off." Cisco said to the guy, and he realized his words were slurring slightly. 

"Who are you to decide that, huh, you little bitch?" He exclaimed, glaring down at Cisco. 

"It's not him deciding that, dumbass." Hazel muttered, almost chuckling a little bit.

"Let  _it_ speak for itself!" He said, smirking down at Cisco.

Well, Cisco figured, if he was going to get beat up by this guy, he might as well make it worth his while, so he gave him a glare that could melt a block of ice and swung at him, catching him hard across the face.

"Holy shit." Hazel muttered. Her girlfriend had come back from the bathroom, and was looking at Cisco with a mix of respect and clearly fearing for his safety. 

"Holy shit is right, I'm about to-" The asshole didn't even finish his sentence and just kicked Cisco really, really hard in the stomach, sending him crashing into the table behind him. 

Fuck, that had hurt. Dizziness plowed through him, pain floating through his stomach where he'd been kicked, nausea blooming there. He'd probably have a couple bruises the next day. Yikes. The alcohol was finally really starting to get to him, too.

"Woah, woah, what's going on here? Leave him alone, and leave her alone, creep. I'm getting out of here." Some guy Cisco had never seen before stepped between them and gently took Cisco's arm, helping him to his feet. He stumbled, and the dude hooked an arm around his waist. He was kinda  _cute,_ too, Jesus. 

Quickly he led Cisco out of the door, letting him grab his jacket and pull it on before they faced the cold.

"You really looked like you needed some air, are you okay?" He asked gently, putting his hand on Cisco's arm. 

"That guy is a  _dick._ " Cisco muttered, and he tried to take a few steps before suddenly a sickening, freezing feeling rushed through him and he almost fell over. 

"Easy, easy. Come on, you really need to get out of here. I'm designated driver for my friends, but we have a backup. I told them I was leaving." He reassured him, and Cisco shook his head, sitting down in the grass and putting his head in between his knees. The stranger sat down beside him. "What's your name, anyway?" He asked quietly.

"It's, I'm Cisco, Cisco Ramon." He mumbled. 

"I'm Rory," the stranger said, smiling a little, "It's nice to meet you."

Cisco smiled back, just a little, and he took in a deep breath and tried standing up. He was about this close to making it to the sidewalk when his stomach lurched and he fell onto his knees, gagging, tasting the sickly-sweetness of whatever the nasty stuff he'd been drinking was. He swallowed hard and tried to let the nausea pass, but his stomach lurched again and he threw up, stomach acid mixed with that nasty pink bullshit that he'd drunk for the sole purpose of getting drunk, the stra-Rory, he corrects- patiently pulling his dark, wavy hair out of harm's way.

"Cisco, it's official, you're crashing on my couch. Come on." He said gently, looping an arm around his waist and half-carrying him to what was probably his car. Cisco slid into the passenger seat, and was asleep within 5 minutes.

 

**3.**

 Cisco had only had enough to drink to be pleasantly buzzed, vaguely on the verge of drunk, and wasn't planning on drinking too much after this- his New Year's resolution, he decided, was to try not to get drunk enough for him to throw up, pass out, or get anyone actually worried.

(He'd never kept his New Year's resolutions, not for a long time. And hey; it was still 2016, right?)

Oliver had invited Team Flash: the Extended Edition (Joe, Barry, Caitlin, himself, HR, Wally, and Iris) to his New Years' Eve get-together; essentially they all just agreed to meet up at this coffeeshop/bar combination over in Star City.

In hindsight, serving both caffeinated AND alcoholic drinks was probably a pretty bad idea. 

Then again, Cisco fucking loved their spiked eggnog lattes, so he wasn't exactly complaining. But again, probably not the smartest idea.

Cisco and Felicity, after a couple drinks and about an hour, had retreated to what they were calling the "nerd corner," Wally joining them soon after in a desperate attempt to get away from the bigger groups.

"So if you reversed the schematics-"

"Wally, bud, please don't try to reverse the schematics on a test run. Don't experiment when you're first starting out running."

"Dude, I can vouch for that firsthand. Barry tried to see how fast he could run backwards on the speed treadmill and ended up smacking into a metric crap-ton of boxes. You'll accidentally hurt yourself or something. And whatever you do, when it comes to HR's advice.. Be very, very careful." Cisco chuckled, remembering Barry's fucking face when he went flying.

"I'll be careful. Promise." Wally gave him a wry smile, but frowned after a couple of seconds, glancing over at some of the other bar patrons. 

A group of people had just waltzed in, pretty clearly already drunk, loudly making obscene jokes and roughhousing like nobody's business. 

Cisco could hear their hushed snickering and weird comments from 6 feet away, and he shot them all a little glare and went back to a heated discussion with Felicity on the ins and outs of particle physics.

"Who the hell is  _that?"_ One girl intoned dramatically, gesturing vaguely at Cisco, who politely ignored her right off the bat.

"Dunno, but I'd probably fuck him if I had the chance." Her friend whispered, clearly making sure he could hear her, and Cisco's face flushed deep scarlet, blush running from his cheeks all the way to the tips of his ears. 

"Are we, we even sure they're a boy? Look at that hair, Jesus, I'd kill for hair like that." The first girl said, and though he was fairly sure she didn't intend for him to hear the first part, he appreciated the comment about the hair, but not the boy thing.

Then again, he was kind of used to it by now, and when Wally looked at him in the way that said  _Ugh, drunk cis people, am I right?_ He just kinda laughed and nodded. The two girls were giggling hysterically at something one of their other friends had said, unintelligible and slurred, the picture of drunkenness. 

"Dude. Jennnna. Did you just.. Did you just assume his gender?" Cisco felt hot, angry shame rising in his chest, suddenly very aware of how long his hair really was, the way his binder felt against his skin, the softness of his features. It made him feel sicker than any hangover ever could've, and he exhaled a short, angry breath.

The first girl and the dude who had said it were laughing like it was the funniest thing they had ever heard, but while the second woman looked vaguely uncomfortable, she didn't say anything.

Felicity gave him a concerned look but he brushed her off, standing up and calmly marching over to the group of evidently drunk friends. Wally gently but firmly grabbed his arm, meeting his eyes and giving a small shake of his head. 

"Not worth it." He mouthed, and Cisco shrugged angrily. 

"The fuck is your problem, dude?" Cisco intoned to the unlucky joke-maker, and he gave him an odd look. 

"What do you mean? Did I offend you or something?" He muttered, chuckling a little bit. "Jesus, people are so touchy these days about being politically correct or whatever." 

Something hot and poisonous flooded Cisco's chest, coiling like a snake about to strike. And strike he did, stepped forward and straight up punched him in the nose, then hooked his leg behind his and quickly, elegantly, pulled his feet out from under him. That was a little move he'd learned from when Sara had last been in town, during a sparring session. The asshole fell, swearing and clutching his nose, but not moving to go after Cisco.

Wally pulled him back. 

"Cisco, dude, why did you do that? Like I said, it wasn't worth it. I hate closet transphobes as much as the next person, but you didn't have to take him down," Wally muttered, "no matter how impressive that was."

"I run on spite,  _duh._ " Cisco shrugged, the anger in his chest settling into a queasy kind of dissociation. "I'm gonna go get some air, ok?" He said quietly, stepping past the group of friends, past Oliver, past a few other drunk as hell patrons, and finally through the door.

 It was already very dark outside, and raining hard, freezing and windy and kind of miserable, which fit his mood perfectly. Cisco stepped out into the rain, sitting down on one of the benches on the sidewalk, getting absolutely drenched. The thick jacket he was wearing did little to stave off the chill, and he was shivering after 2 minutes. The cold helped to clear his head. Tendrils of angry, snaking bitterness were slowly starting to retreat, not gone completely, manifesting themselves as a general nauseated exhaustion, mixed with self-hate.

The words of the drunk guy echoed through his mind, the acidic mocking burning his ears. He took in a deep, deep breath, and let it out, breath curling into a little cloud in front of him. He'd had his binder on for a little longer than he intended today, but not longer than you were supposed to. His shoulders were still starting to ache. 

The nausea that had been there before had mostly settled, but the dissociation left behind was still there. He closed his eyes and felt the rain, the freezing cold seeping into his bones, and listened to the sound of it. The pattering drum beat of the rain on the sidewalk, his own breathing, and-

Footsteps.

 "Dude, it's freezing, why are you out here in the rain?" Wally asked softly, and sat down next to him, making sure he was covered by the umbrella he's holding. (It's a lightsaber umbrella, Cisco noted appreciatively, and smiled softly.)

"I-I- Was j-just thinking, t-that's all," Cisco mumbled, teeth chattering, and he pulled his legs up onto the bench, wrapping his arms around his knees and closing his eyes. 

Wally put a hand on his shoulder, warm and solid and gentle, and Cisco curled up a little more. 

"Ok, but it really looked more like you were dissociating to hell and back." He said quietly. Cisco nodded, and kept shivering, and it definitely felt like he'd had more to drink than he had actually had. Maybe he did. He actually wasn't sure at that point. "Cisco, that guy is an Asshole with a capital A. You shouldn't listen to him. He was drunk anyways." Wally comforted, and Cisco let out a shaky breath. 

"Doesn't-Doesn't mean he didn't s-say it." He muttered, a little bit bitterly, and holy Harry Potter, he was absolutely freezing.

"I know. I know. Transphobic assholes are gonna always exist, and that really sucks. As superheroes, though, we can use our platform as a voice to speak up against that. Against a lot of things. We can help change the world, and not just by putting criminals behind bars." Wally gave him a smile, and Cisco felt a little bit warmer inside. This kid was so happy, even with the past he'd had; it really gave him hope.

After a few minutes of silence, they walked back into the bar, and back to the "nerd corner," Cisco absolutely soaked, and shaking, but significantly less dissociative. 

Barry was sitting on the couch quietly chatting with Felicity, and they both gave Cisco a soft, concerned look when he sat down. Cisco gave Barry probably the most exhausted, sad look that had ever been on his face, and he frowned softly, gently gathering Cisco in his arms and mouthing a badly concealed  _"what happened?"_ to Wally.

"Do you want to go home? I can drop you off if you want," Barry said gently, and Cisco shook his head, burying his face in Barry's shoulder and wrapping his arms around his neck. He stayed like that for a couple minutes, Barry eventually starting to vibrate his hands at a frequency low enough where it wasn't really visually noticeable, but enough to help warm him up, fingers running through rain-dampened hair. 

Cisco pulled back slightly, keeping one of Barry's arms around his shoulders, but not straight-up sitting with his legs on top of his, because they were in public, and that was kinda weird.

Felicity moved over to sit next to him, a look of quiet concern on her face.

"Can I hug you? Because honestly, you look really upset right now, and that's really worrying me." She asked gently, clearly not wanting to overstep her boundaries, which Cisco really appreciated. He wordlessly hugged her, and she hugged him back, and holy hell why was everybody so warm compared to him?

(Something inside him said that it was because he'd been out in the freezing weather for more than 15 minutes. He ignored that something.)

"Going home would be nice, but I hardly ever get to see Team Arrow, you know? And plus, I'm a spiteful creature. I'd fall asleep if I went home; I wanna see 2016 die right before my eyes." He shrugged, and started laughing.

Damn, was he glad this year would be over soon.

 

 

\---

**Author's Note:**

> This took a while for me to write the whole thing; it was originally gonna be a 3+1 but when I finished I felt that didn't fit the message. This wasn't beta'd.  
> Listen ok I really like writing angry Cisco.


End file.
